with the spirit if not the law
of English toleration. He urged, for example, that those like Collins be
prosecuted in a civil court for a persuasion "which is manifestly
subversive of all Order and Polity, and can no more consist with civil,
than with religious, Society."[25]

Thereupon followed charge and countercharge. New gladiators, as different
from each other as the nonconformist divine Samuel Chandler and the deist
Thomas Chubb, entered the arena on behalf of Collins. For all the dogmatic
volubility of Rogers, orthodoxy appeared beleaguered. The moderate clergy,
who witnessed this exchange, became alarmed; they feared that in the melee
the very heart of English toleration would be threatened by the
contenders, all of whom spoke as its champion. Representative of such
moderation was Nathanael Marshall, who wished if not to end the debate,
then at least to contain its ardor. As canon of Windsor, he supported the
condition of a state religion protected by the magistrate but he worried
over the extent of the latter's prerogative and power. Certainly he was
more liberal than Rogers in his willingness to entertain professions of
religious diversity. Yet he straitjacketed his liberalism when he denied
responsible men the right to attack laws, both civil and canonical, with
"ludicrous Insult" or "with Buffoonery and Banter, Ridicule or Sarcastick
Irony."[26]

Once again Collins met the challenge. In _A Discourse concerning Ridicule
and Irony_ he devoted himself to undermining the moral, the intellectual,
and practical foundations of that one restraint which Marshall would
impose upon the conduct of any religious quarrel. He had little difficulty
in achieving his objective. His adversary's stand was visibly vulnerable
and for several reasons. It was too conscious of the tug-of-war between
the deist and Rogers, too arbitrary in its choice of prohibition. It was,
in truth, strained by a choice between offending the establishment and yet
rejecting clerical extremism.[27] Moreover, Collins had this time an
invisible partner, a superior thinker against whom he could test his own
ideas and from whom he could borrow others. For the _Discourse concerning
Ridicule and Irony_ is largely a particularization, a crude but powerful
reworking of Shaftesbury's _Sensus Communis: An Essay on the Freedom of
Wit and Humour_.

Supported by Shaftesbury's urbane generalization, Collins laughed openly
at the egocentricity and blindness of Marshall's timid zealotry. Indeed,
he wryly found his orthodox opponent guilty of the very crime with which
he, as a subversive, was charged. It seemed to him, he said,

a most prodigious Banter upon [mankind], for Men to talk in general
of the _Immorality_ of _Ridicule_ and _Irony_, and of _punishing_ Men
for those Matters, when their own Practice is _universal Irony_ and
_Ridicule_ of all those who go not with them, and _universal
Applause_ and _Encouragement_ for such _Ridicule_ and _Irony_, and
distinguishing by all the honourable ways imaginable such _drolling_
Authors for their Drollery; and when Punishment for _Drollery_ is
never call'd for, but when _Drollery_ is used or employ'd against
them!

(p. 29)

Collins's technique continued its ironic ambiguity, reversal, and
obliquity. Under a tone of seeming innocence and good will, he credited
his adversaries with an enviable capacity for satiric argument. In
comradely fashion, he found precedent for his own rhetorical practice
through a variety of historical and biblical analogies. But even more
important for a contemporary audience, he again resorted to the device of
invoking the authority provided by some of the most respected names in the
Anglican Establishment. The use of satire in religious topics, hence, was
manifest in "the Writings of our most eminent Divines," especially those
of Stillingfleet, "our greatest controversial Writer" (pp. 4-5).